Wednesday, May 23, 2007

When I made my contribution for the blog about Jean-Luc Ponty some days ago, I found some great music of Stanley Clarke. Although I had heard about him I learned that in my collection there were but few tracks where he plays the bass. What a shame !! I think I need some new supply for that.

Stanley Clarke was born in Philadelphia, June 1951 ( about my age I realize ), and learned to play several instruments, but the electric bass guitar became his major one. He played with Paroah Sanders, Stan Getz and recorded with Art Blakey and Dexter Gordon. One of the sessions I have in my collection is in the Dexter GordonThe Complete Prestige Recordings box in the June 1972 session for the albums Tangerine and Ca'Purange. He played with several hardbop musicians during the 1970s, before he met Chick Corea, where he became part of his group Return To Forever. Since that time he plays the electric bass guitar. When he left the group late 1970s he founded his own groups and played more funky orientated stuff with musicians like George Duke. He played four years with Duke and the group was very succesfull, although more in the popular music and not very jazz-orientated. Stanley Clarke says in an interview I found in Jazz Nu (Sep. 1999), that he loves to play in all kind of styles and not be stucked to one particulary style of music. So he played contemporary jazz, pop-music, R & B and smooth jazz. Remarkable was a solo tour he made in the 1980s. He also concentrates himself to film music

From the fragments I found I love the upright bass solo's the best. Bass players are very important instrumentalists in a group as they create the basis of a tune - if they do their job well, you don't notice them - they don't have a striking roll. Of course they can have solos, where they can show how skilful they are on their instrument, but normally the bassman remains in the background. Stanley Clarke has a rapid, precise, aggresive way of playing and personally I like him the most when he plays the accoustic bass. I love to share with you some fragments where he plays one of his well known tunes, School Days, during the Montreux and the Northsea Jazz Festival. The third fragment is from the JVC Festival at Newport (USA)

I haven't foundStanley Clarkein the 2007RotterdamNorth Sea Jazz Festival program. I'l have a look later today if he's playing.